The moment Jerry's feet touched the ground, he steadied himself against a thick tree trunk and drew the Elder Wand. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept the heavy darkness around him.
Jerry had no idea who had brought him to these Woods, or how. He did not even know whether he was in the Forbidden Forest or somewhere else.
"I didn't expect," came a hoarse, strangely familiar voice, "Dumbledore to give you that wand. He must care a great deal about your safety. I wonder if he'll cry when he hears you're dead. Will it break his heart the way mine was broken?"
A figure slowly emerged from the darkness, the moonlight barely tracing his outline: the Third Bishop, Ezekiel Mammon. Gone was the polished man Jerry had last seen. His face was covered in stubble, his hair was greasy and disheveled enough to rival Snape's, and his stained, ragged clothes spoke of long neglect.
"But," Ezekiel Mammon's voice turned shrill and wild, "however much he grieves, it won't be a ten-thousandth of what I felt! Because... hahaha... I killed my own son with my own hands!"
"This should count as our first real meeting... No." The Third Bishop, Ezekiel Mammon, shook his head, looking deeply unstable. "It's the first time I've seen you, not the first time you've seen me. You saw me in New York, on that rainy night!"
"I know you're wondering why I'm here, and why Sophia didn't warn you..."
Ezekiel Mammon burst into laughter tinged with grief and madness. Then he flicked his wand, and Sophia Mammon, already under the Imperius Curse, floated stiffly into view. Her face was blank, as though invisible strings held her aloft.
"That stupid woman dared to betray me, her own husband!" Ezekiel Mammon's voice was cold and devoid